Roger Lane-Smith was born in 1945 at Adlington Hall in Cheshire, England.He qualified as a lawyer in 1969 and in 1977 started his own single-partner law firm in Manchester, intent on creating from scratch the world's largest law firm. Thirty-three years later he achieved this ambition with the firm of DLA Piper, now the world's largest with in excess of 4,500 fee-earners across 87 offices in 32 countries with revenues of £1.5bn.Roger has been married for 45 years to Pamela and they live in Cheshire and in Provence. They have two adult children, Zoë and Jonathan, and a grandson, Logan. Roger's passions outside the law include golf, shooting and fine wine.|